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Conducting Research
Most people aren't about to plunk down thousands of dollars to buy stock a company they haven't heard of — unless they've just won Powerball and are feeling lucky. The average investor is going to do some homework before making major money decisions.

At Boston Merchant Financial Services, we provide the tools to help make life easier. Visit our Quotes & Research section and you'll be amazed at the wealth of information at your fingertips. For each company, we provide up-to-the-minute news and stock price information, analyst ratings, earnings estimates, and much more.

These pages also combine community data with traditional market research data. When looking up a stock quote you can review the sentiment indicators which show whether community members are buying or selling a particular stock, how widely held the stock and how members holding the stock are performing in relationship to others. Boston Merchant Financial believes this data can help you making a better decision.

What’s a stock

A share of stock is essentially a small piece of a publicly traded company that can be traded openly between different individuals. They can be traded on exchanges in most countries, but the largest exchanges, like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are located in the United States. Stocks are identified by their ticker symbol, generally one to five characters. For example, International Business Machines is identified on its exchange as IBM.

Owning stock in a company also grants voting rights for some of the company's decisions, including elections for the Board of Directors - either at the annual meeting or by proxy.

For many years, stock ownership meant that an investor would receive a physical stock certificate, but in the digital world brokers keep the document "in street name" and investors receive a confirmation of ownership. It becomes the broker's responsibility to notify shareholders of corporate events, such as annual meetings.